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Comprehensive analysis of mesenchymal cells reveals a dysregulated TGF-β/WNT/HOXB7 axis in patients with myelofibrosis
Saravanan Ganesan, Sarah Awan-Toor, Fabien Guidez, Nabih Maslah, Rifkath Rahimy, Céline Aoun, Panhong Gou, Chloé Guiguen, Juliette Soret, Odonchimeg Ravdan, Valeria Bisio, Nicolas Dulphy, Camille Lobry, Marie-Hélène Schlageter, Michèle Souyri, Stéphane Giraudier, Jean-Jacques Kiladjian, Christine Chomienne, Bruno Cassinat
Saravanan Ganesan, Sarah Awan-Toor, Fabien Guidez, Nabih Maslah, Rifkath Rahimy, Céline Aoun, Panhong Gou, Chloé Guiguen, Juliette Soret, Odonchimeg Ravdan, Valeria Bisio, Nicolas Dulphy, Camille Lobry, Marie-Hélène Schlageter, Michèle Souyri, Stéphane Giraudier, Jean-Jacques Kiladjian, Christine Chomienne, Bruno Cassinat
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Research Article Hematology

Comprehensive analysis of mesenchymal cells reveals a dysregulated TGF-β/WNT/HOXB7 axis in patients with myelofibrosis

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Abstract

Despite the advances in the understanding and treatment of myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN), the disease remains incurable with the risk of evolution to acute myeloid leukemia or myelofibrosis (MF). Unfortunately, the evolution of the disease to MF remains poorly understood, impeding preventive and therapeutic options. Recent studies in solid tumor microenvironment and organ fibrosis have shed instrumental insights on their respective pathogenesis and drug resistance, yet such precise data are lacking in MPN. In this study, through a patient sample–driven transcriptomic and epigenetic description of the MF microenvironment landscape and cell-based analyses, we identify homeobox B7 (HOXB7) overexpression and more precisely a potentially novel TGF-β/WNT/HOXB7 pathway as associated to a pro-fibrotic and pro-osteoblastic biased differentiation of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs). Using gene-based and chemical inhibition of this pathway, we reversed the abnormal phenotype of MSCs from patients with MF, providing the MPN field a potentially novel target to prevent and manage evolution to MF.

Authors

Saravanan Ganesan, Sarah Awan-Toor, Fabien Guidez, Nabih Maslah, Rifkath Rahimy, Céline Aoun, Panhong Gou, Chloé Guiguen, Juliette Soret, Odonchimeg Ravdan, Valeria Bisio, Nicolas Dulphy, Camille Lobry, Marie-Hélène Schlageter, Michèle Souyri, Stéphane Giraudier, Jean-Jacques Kiladjian, Christine Chomienne, Bruno Cassinat

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Figure 3

ATAC-Seq, RNA-Seq, and coculture studies highlight HOXB7 upregulation in F-MPN samples.

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ATAC-Seq, RNA-Seq, and coculture studies highlight HOXB7 upregulation in...
(A) Heatmap showing the top 50 differentially regulated genes from RNA-Seq data. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering by sample and gene were performed. The data are based on samples from the F-MPN (n = 7) and control (n = 4) MSC groups. In the top 50 genes, boxed genes are associated with either fibrosis or osteoblast differentiation pathways. (B) Gene accessibility tracks of HOXB genes (ATAC-Seq) show a statistically significant increased accessibility in F-MPNs (example of the HOXB-AS3-HOXB7 region is quantified in the right panel). P value *< 0.02 calculated using unpaired t test. (C) qRT-PCR validation of the ATAC-Seq and RNA-Seq findings in control (n = 13) and F-MPN (n = 10) samples. Several HOXB genes are upregulated in F-MPN MSCs. P values (*<0.05, **<0.01) were calculated using unpaired t test. (D) In vitro coculture of normal human mesenchymal cells from the HS-5 cell line with either cells or conditioned media from human hematopoietic cell line UT-7 bearing either the wild-type JAK2 gene (WT) or the mutated JAK2 V617F gene (VF) or with TGF-β (10 ng/mL). (E) After 7 days’ coculture, an increased expression of HOXB7 and ACTA2 genes is noted in the MSCs after exposure to TGF-β or JAK2-mutated cells (VF). P values (*<0.05) were calculated using unpaired t test.

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